Fallen

Fallen was created using yarn, a variety of beads and embellishments, polymer clay, Paperclay, acrylic paint, and adhesive.

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This piece is currently on exhibition at Artomatic 2017 in Crystal City, Virginia until May 7, 2017.

The Story:

Fallen started out with a simple plan. I had some scrap polymer clay to use up and I wanted to reduce the amount of beads I had on hand. My plan for the polymer clay was close, originally the ‘branches’ were supposed to be black, like the pools created by cooled lava at the beach. I was going to fill the areas between the blackened polymer clay with beads set it resin. Clearly, this did not go to plan.

Why? After carving & backing the polymer clay, something caused me to paint it more tree-like. I don’t remember what now. I carved out the moss & shelf mushrooms with Paperclay and painted them. I filled the pond-like area with the blue beads. So far, so good. Then I took all my green beads & scattered them on to the green section. That brought things to a screeching halt. I did not have nearly as many beads as I thought I had. Not by a long shot. I had to rethink this so I set it aside for a long time.

After I finished Deep Forest I had green yarn left over. I decided to try to see if I could use the yarn to ‘paint’ with. I really liked the way that turned out. That section became the basis for the rest of the piece, for better or worse. I found some coral colored beads for the orange section. I stuck to my plan for that and just glued them similarly to the blue section. I immediately regretted that. From this point Fallen was a struggle as I messed up my plan and had a very hard time coming to grips with how to proceed. When all was said and done, I ended up cutting out two of the sections. I spent countless hours searching for the right colors to use, the right yarn (painting with yarn is not that easy & choosing the right kind of yarn is vital). I honestly doubted this piece would ever be completed. It was supposed to be a simple piece, it turned out to be very complex and time-consuming.

The name Fallen comes from the concept that a ‘prehistorically large’ tree has fallen. The branches have divided the land well enough that each segment became home to a specific color variation of foliage.